The Mississippi River's waters have plummeted to new lows, causing barges to be grounded on the shallow riverbed and allowing seawater to enter Louisiana. The US Army Corps of Engineers is in a state of chaos.
The agency is constructing an underwater levee at the mouth of the river to stop the flow of water from the Gulf of Mexico.
The USACE is racing to dig emergency dredges in order to maintain a channel of nine feet deep for barges carrying agricultural goods and fuel up and down the Mississippi. The central US is powered by those goods.
The price of shipping them has gone up in the last month. The total economic losses are estimated by Accuweather.
There is an end in sight. The public affairs officer for the USACE told Insider that no ma'am was available. Mother Nature is at her mercy at the moment.
The lower river valleys of Ohio and Missouri are experiencing a lack of precipitation. At least eight barges ran aground in the shallow waters during the peak harvest season. There are new restrictions on how low ships and barges can be.
Since that time, the river has lost more volume. Water levels have fallen past the record low set in 1988.
The National Weather Service predicts that river levels will stay low over the next 28 days.
Any single event has to be attributed to the climate crisis by scientists. Climate research shows that rising global temperatures are making droughts more severe and last longer.
The USACE has seven dredge vessels that are sucking up riverbed material in areas where the waters are too shallow for boats. She doesn't know how many sites they've dredged because they've been deployed 24/7.
She said that as soon as they're done working, they'll move on to the next location.
The river on the Louisiana coast is so low that ocean water from the Gulf of Mexico began to push upstream. The USACE is racing to build a 35-foot-high underwater levee to keep saltwater out of the river. There is a drinking water advisory in effect.
A public affairs officer for the USACE's New Orleans district said that contractors were working on the levee on Friday.
Once the levee is finished, the work will not be done. The engineers will keep an eye on the river. The levee will be built taller if the barrier is broken.
The work may continue for another month. They expect to be dredged every day.
She said that they were confident that they could keep the Mississippi open.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
